Unlocking the Mystery of the Ancient Sooty Molecule Found in a Donut-Lensed Galaxy

Key Highlights :

1. The James Webb Space Telescope is just one month away from celebrating its in operation.

2. Recently, using the telescope, astronomers found the oldest-known instance of a molecule that's crucial to star formation.

3. The molecule, known as PAS, is sooty and carcinogenic.

4. As JWST operations program scientist told an audience at the of the American Astronomical Society in New Mexico on Monday, it's not something you want to have up your nose.

5. The world was really different in the distant universe, says , the paper’s lead researcher and assistant professor of astronomy at Texas A&M University.

6. After the Big Bang, “the universe is almost entirely hydrogen and helium… and yet somehow, you have to form a first generation of stars,” Spilker tells .

7. Some astronomers think that when the universe was that young — just 10 percent of its current age — it was so much warmer and smaller that massive galaxies may have been able to form stars hundreds of times faster than the Milky Way does today.

8. Still, they don’t entirely know how it happened.

9. To view the ancient galaxy, astronomers peered at an Einstein ring. This phenomenon occurs when you can almost draw a straight line between Earth, the distant galaxy, and a closer galaxy in the middle.

10. The central object has so much gravity that it warps the light of the galaxy farther away. This allowed a team, who published their new findings on Monday in the journal , to discover the oldest-known instance of a peculiar molecule.

11. If that’s the case, PAS could hint that the galaxy from 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang — which is already ancient at roughly 10 percent of the universe’s current age – started forming stars much earlier than astronomers can currently see.

12. The next course of action is to build context for PAS and gain “some constraints on what is physically going on in these galaxies, what processes are in place, that are leading to this emission,” , the study’s co-author and an astronomy professor at the University of Florida, tells .

     The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is set to celebrate its first year of operations in just one month. In the short time since its launch, the telescope has already uncovered a wealth of information about the universe. But as the telescope continues to peer deeper into the distant universe, it has revealed something even more remarkable: the oldest-known instance of a peculiar molecule.

     The molecule, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAS), is sooty and carcinogenic. It is typically involved in the process through which gas and dust condense to form stars. But despite its importance, astronomers still don’t understand all the mechanisms involved.

     This is why the recent discovery of PAS within a galaxy that existed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang is so remarkable. It could challenge our current understanding of when the first star formed.

     To view the ancient galaxy, astronomers used a phenomenon called an Einstein ring. This occurs when a massive object, such as a galaxy or cluster, bends and magnifies the light of an object much farther away. The result is a high-resolution view of the distant object.

     Using the JWST, the team was able to spot the crucial dust within the donut-shaped Einstein ring. This is the furthest back in time that organic molecules have ever been seen in the universe.

     The presence of PAS is still a puzzle. Some astronomers think that when the universe was young, it was so much warmer and smaller that massive galaxies may have been able to form stars hundreds of times faster than the Milky Way does today. But they don’t entirely know how it happened.

     The discovery of PAS in this ancient galaxy could shift our understanding of when stars formed. It’s likely that PAS are too complex to form alone in the void of space. One theory is that they come from aging stars. When stars die, they start to poof up and get really, really fluffy, and then their outermost layers are barely held on by gravity. So those outer layers just start to float away and cool down as they move further away.

     The next course of action is to build context for PAS and gain “some constraints on what is physically going on in these galaxies, what processes are in place, that are leading to this emission.”

     None of this would have been possible without the new JWST. Its best work, it seems, is yet to come. With the help of the telescope, astronomers may soon unlock the mystery of the ancient sooty molecule.

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